When I awoke this morning, I discovered that Harriet had sprouted wings, seemingly out of nowhere.

They have all been practicing their flapping this morning, but Harriet’s definitely best at it. I tried to catch some flapping action shots, but my digital camera moves too slowly. I was only able to catch half a flap.

I made a little jungle gym for them out of kindling and rolled-up newspaper, so that they can exercise their winglets. They like it a lot. (Funny that none of my chicken books mention adding toys to the brood box.)

I had better post these pictures from Sunday, before they expire completely.

Chicks dig visiting with distant relatives:

Chicks dig knitting:

(But you knew that already.)

Tags: Chicks Dig It, My Peeps

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The chicks are six days old now, and they have all sprouted hilariously ineffective tail feathers. Harriet was first with the butt fluff, but Dolly is giving her a run for her money, tail-feather-wise.

Ethel* and Martha are last in line. They’re so ridiculously fluffy right now that I’ll be sad to see their big girl feathers grow in.

Also popular: looking out the window.

Many people have asked how the cats are doing. The cats find the chicks intellectually interesting, but they’re happy to just sit and watch.

I’ve talked before about the cat thermometer, the phenomenon by which I can judge the cabin’s temperature by glancing at the cats. Here’s a demonstration of the cat thermometer in action, from an evening when the wood stove got a little out of hand.

65 degrees:

74 degrees:

82 degrees:

* I swapped that name in for Abigail, which was insufficiently “old lady.” I marked a dot on Ethel’s head with a Sharpie (it’s non-toxic), so that I can tell them apart.

Tags: cat thermometer, My Peeps

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Everyone knows – chicks dig The Sims 2.

Have you ever wondered if you were the first person ever in human history to do something? I wonder if I am the first person ever in human history to hold a three-day-old baby chick up to a computer monitor in order to take a picture of it watching The Sims 2. I very well might be.

Before we move on to the Sims proper, I just wanted to point out Harriet’s eensy weensy proto-tail feathers.

Okay. Please put your chickens away now. Sorry about that – Frank is at college, and I find the college years atrociously boring.

College is an important life stage, because they can spend most of their day increasing their skills. And Sims that graduate from college end up with six slots for Wants, rather than the usual four. This makes it easier to manage them, because the more Wants they have, the more likely it is that one of them will be easy to fulfill.

Still, though. I get a lot of knitting done when my Sims are at college.

In his senior year, I sent Frank out to some community lots to find a prospective wife. This was weird:

“I’m ignoring you as I walk right past you, and also I’m in love with you, and also I’m pretending to have a conversation on the phone.” WTF.

Moments after Crazy In Love And Using Imaginary Phone Lady walked past, a girl named Sharon Wirth walked onto the lot. Frank swooned as soon as he laid eyes upon her. Fortunately, she was smitten by him, as well.

Frank has graduated college, and is ready to return home. FINALLY.

Tags: My Peeps, Sims Sunday

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It is done! The Binary Armwarmer pattern is now available for sale (PDF download) in my Ravelry store. For those of you without Ravelry accounts, I’m working to get it published on Patternfish as well.

These self-referential, elbow-length armwarmers each say “ARMWARMER” in binary. Be the biggest geek in your knitting group, and the biggest knitter in your geek group!

Special bonus: they are stripey!

(Click pictures for bigger version)

Special thanks to Dorothy (tech editor) and Advicemonkey (hand model)!

Tags: Binary Armwarmers, FO

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You guys are making me wish I had a webcam! Maybe I’ll run out this weekend and try to find a cheap one, if I have a chance.

Until then, a video clip will have to suffice. The chicks are still a little leery of The Hand, so they huddled against the far wall when I reached in with the camera.

With no further ado, your Friday Cute:

Tags: My Peeps

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